Blue Cross Blue Shield
Implicit bias training
Blue Cross Blue Shield teamed up with March of Dimes to bring implicit bias training Awareness to Action: Dismantling Bias in Maternal and Infant Healthcare to their health plans nationwide. Recipients of this training learn how to identify implicit bias, understand how biases are formed, and implement strategies to effectively mitigate bias in their patient encounters. The training guides trainees through the history of structural racism in this country and helps puts trainees on a path to establishing a culture of equity within their practice or organization.
In 2021, BCBSA announced its commitment to reduce racial disparities in maternal health by 50% in five years.
Their strategies for accomplishing this include:
- Advocating for all mothers by working with policymakers to strengthen and scale policies to make care more equitable nationwide.
- Collaborating to provide incentives and trainings for providers to offer care that is sensitive and remove unconscious bias within health care delivery.
- Addressing social drivers of health, focusing on root causes to better help pregnant women, mothers and babies get the care they need.
- Working with industry partners to standardize data collection and analysis to better understand care gaps and create interventions that will address them.
Offering this training to BCBS companies is one of several strategies BCBSA is undertaking to change the trajectory of maternal health disparities and create a more equitable healthcare system.
Nearly one third of BCBS companies have committed to offering March of Dimes implicit bias training to their employees and network of providers, with others in line to provide training in 2023.